Designing Fashion Spaces: Jakob+Macfarlane’s Docks on Seine

Among the various lectures organised as part of the "Building Fashion" course at the AA School in Paris (the last one, featuring French architect, teacher and critic Clément Blanchet, appointed this year Director of OMA*AMO France, took place yesterday evening) there was also an event with Brendan Macfarlane, one half (the other half being Dominique Jakob) of the Paris-based architectural firm Jakob+Macfarlane.

Macfarlane introduced the students to the various projects the duo worked on – including interior design projects such as the Librairie Loewy (Paris, 2001), office buildings like Le Cube Orange/Siege societe Cardinal (Lyon, 2010), or larger venues such as the Mediatheque et cinema (Saint Malo, 2009) and the housing project 100 logements (Paris, 2008).

The architect explained the main aims and objectives of the various plans, but also highlighted the importance of using new materials to create more responsive environments.

My favourite project is the one called 100 logements, because it pushes the boundaries of social housing, while my favourite building is the 20 000 M² Docks en Seine, Cité de la mode et du design, located in Paris' Quai Austerlitz, in the old Magasins Généraux d'Austerlitz, designed in 1907 by Georges Morin-Goustiaux.

I particularly like this building because it looks simple and linear though movement is added through the green structure overimposed on it inspired by the river flow.

The building is important because it reunites together fashion and design since it includes the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), but also features other exhibition spaces and venues.

A corridor links the IFM to the other bits of the venue, allowing in this way the students to easily reach out other parts of the structure and be inspired by what’s going on in the other sections of the building (fashion fans may remember that Dries Van Noten and Felipe Oliveira Baptista used the venue for their S/S 2011 catwalk shows).

During the lecture Macfarlane, gave us some historical details about the area, its commercial and transport activities and its re-qualification, underlining how important it was while planning this project to come up with a building that could preserve its past while being completely projected towards the future.

Please check the Jakob + MacFarlane site to discover more about their projects (current projects include the Euronews Headquarters in Lyon, the new FRAC Architecture Exhibition Center in Orléans, a Dance and Music Conservatory in Noisy-le-Sec and the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris).